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WAC teams compete in “Bracket Buster"
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A catchy, alliterative name plus ESPN telecasts might be enough to help some Little Guy teams prove they belong on the same bracket with the NCAA’s Big Boys.
That’s the concept behind Saturday’s Bracket Buster event. Eighteen teams from seven conferences-the Western Athletic, Missouri Valley, Mid-American, Sun Belt, Big West, West Coast and Horizon-hope to catch the eyes of the NCAA Tournament committee, which will select and seed this year’s field in a month.
“The success of the Bracket Buster concept will be if one of these teams is able to play their way into the tournament as an at-large team or a team improves its seed with the boost from winning on Saturday,” said WAC commissioner Karl Benson.”It’s probably more of an exposure opportunity for us. The WAC is having three ESPN games on that day, and that’s never happened.”
Benson, a member of the NCAA Tournament committee, and Missouri Valley Conference commissioner Doug Elgin, a former member of the committee, worked with ESPN to make the Bracket Buster happen.
Over the past six NCAA Tournaments, 151 of the 204 at-large spots in the NCAA Tournament have gone to teams from the six Bowl Championship Series conferences: Big 12, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big East, Southeastern and Pac-10.
Benson bristles at the term “mid-major” when applied to his league, but the seven conferences involved received only three at-large bids last season.
“You can fight being (called) a mid-major, but there are six leagues out there. Period,” Mid-American Conference commissioner Rick Chryst said. “I think it’s an opportunity to shine some really bright lights on our programs at a time of year when there’s some interest in our conferences. And it’s an unbelievably unique effort to do something with our schedules.”
The event, though, is not being met with across-the-board enthusiasm. If ever a team needed to bust a move on the bracket, it would be Butler. Last year, the Bulldogs lost in the first round of the Horizon League tournament and failed to receive a bid despite a 25-5 record and victories over Indiana and Purdue.
However, Butler declined to participate in the Bracket Buster because of the uncertainty involving its opponent.
“We had already signed up to play Duke,” Butler coach Todd Lickliter said. “I didn’t know where we would play. I was going to have to blindly say, `Let’s put the conference and potential fatigue up against getting some exposure.’ As I just weighed everything, it just didn’t make any sense to us.”
Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, a former chairman of the NCAA Tournament committee, didn’t believe his conference belonged in this so-called “mid-major” event.
“Why would we want to be involved with this? I’m looking at “USA Today” and reading words like `lesser leagues’ and `ambitious.’ That is just not for us,” Thompson said. “We rank ahead of the Pac-10 in power ratings. Do you think they were called to participate in Bracket Buster?”
Last year’s dominance of at-large bids by the major conferences was blamed on the NCAA Tournament committee’s ignorance of teams outside the top six conferences.
“We think that (the NCAA Tournament) should reward teams for excellence, not necessarily reward them for mediocrity,” Horizon commissioner Jon LeCrone said. “These games are important, but so is the remainder of the season. I sincerely believe the national committee will pay attention to these games.”
Five of the nine Bracket Buster games are on ESPN or ESPN2.
“We’ve been struggling to get TV games, but this is a start of something that could be really good in the future,” Hawaii coach Riley Wallace said. “It’s a tough trip for us in the middle of the season, but we’re willing to do it to draw some attention to our program and to the WAC.”
Some of the games are compelling. Fresno State, the top team in the Western Athletic Conference, plays at Creighton, the top team in the Missouri Valley Conference. Hawaii at Kent State, Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Southern Illinois and Tulsa at Gonzaga also should be tasty matchups.
“I think it’s kind of neat they’re doing this,” Fresno State first-year coach Ray Lopes said. “It’s providing an opportunity, and for us, it’s the only opportunity to be on national television.”
And then there are some matchups that will be seen only in the television markets of the teams involved.
“We had our bracket busted a while ago,” said Tim Buckley of 12-11 Ball State, which plays at 18-8 Western Kentucky. Ditto for Northern Iowa (7-14) at Louisiana Tech (12-9), and Illinois State (4-18) at Marshall (11-11).
All nine games will be “returned” next year, with the home teams playing on the road against their visiting opponents in non-conference games that will be held in November. (The exceptions are that Hawaii and UC-Santa Barbara will play each other and Kent State will play at Detroit.
“Being a mid-major, it’s a step we have to take,” said Detroit coach Perry Watson, whose team plays at UC-Santa Barbara. “We have to take gambles that the power conferences don’t have to take. This is the hand we’re dealt, and we’re prepared to play it.”
Wendell Barnhouse, Knight Ridder Newspapers
